NEW DELHI: More than 15,000 schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) have been advised to engage students at least twice a week in yoga classes as part of their physical activity programme.
According to the HRD Ministry, the CBSE advised schools to provide compulsory 40-45 minutes of physical activities or games to the students of classes I to X every day and students of classes XI and XII should participate in physical activity/games/mass physical training/yoga for at least two periods per week, AYUSH Minister Shripad Yasso Naik said.
The CBSE offers physical and health education for classes XI and XII and yoga is compulsory part of its curriculum.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Naik said yoga education has also been made a compulsory part of study and practice by National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).
The NCTE has already developed modules on Yoga Education for Diploma in Elementary Education and Master of Education. These will be used by more than 18,000 teacher education institutions and also 14 lakh students -teachers and teacher educators who are studying and or teaching in these institutions.
The minister said the HRD Ministry has informed that the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005, which is a policy document for the country, recommended yoga as an integral part of health and physical education.
He said the government has laid down the national policy on Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy-2002 which envisages overall growth and development of yoga.
The government has formulated the programmes and operational measures for promotion of yoga through Centrally sponsored scheme of National AYUSH Mission (NAM) and various Central sector schemes.
Naik said, "A task force has been constituted by the Ministry to deliberate and make recommendations on various important issues concerning the AYUSH Ministry, including the preferred option for promotion, development and regulation of Yoga and Naturopathy for education and practice."